Former Nigeria Aviation minister and recently, Director of media and publicity to President Goodluck Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential campaign organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode has rolled out series of criminal cases which have been made against him by those he called political detractors, even as he announced the change of his family name from Fani-Kayode to Olukayode.
Addressing newsmen today in Lagos while reacting to the court verdict earlier in the day, acquitting him of money laundering, Olukayode said that initially, he was accused of stealing N19.5bn of public funds when he was Minister of Aviation but that it was thrown out by the courts.
“Then I was accused of stealing N6.5bn. It was thrown out by the courts. Then I was accused of laundering N200m. It was thrown out by the courts. Then I was accused of laundering N99m. It was thrown out by the courts. Finally, I was accused of laundering N1m and N1.1m respectively, and today, both of these charges have also been thrown out by the courts.”
Olukayode said that in the last seven years, he had been subjected to the most malicious, vicious, sinister, well-orchestrated, insidious and devastating form of political persecution and wickedness, adding: “the whole process almost destroyed my life, my family, my reputation, my health and my career. I thank God for His goodness, His mercy and for the fact that today, the whole nightmare has finally come to an end.”
The former PDP Presidential campaign spokesman thanked God, his family members, leaders of the Body of Christ, intercessors, pastors, political associates and friends who never doubted his innocence and who stood by him through thick and thin “for today’s verdict.”
He thanked the judiciary “for refusing to send an innocent man to jail and for refusing to allow themselves to be used as tools for personal and vindictive vendettas or political persecution.”
Olukayode recalled that the whole nightmare started on 1st of July 2008 when he was arrested in the premises of the Nigerian Senate after the public hearing on the N19.5 billion Naira Aviation Intervention Fund.
“I was cleared of any wrong doing in the administration of that fund by the Senate Commitee on Aviation yet despite that, immediately after the sitting before the Comimitee, I was abducted and arrested in an unceremonious and shameul fashion and locked up by the Farida Waziri-led EFCC for 10 days and charged to a magistrate court in Abuja.
“Today, the 1st of July 2015, seven years to the day from that day when I was first arrested and first put into detention, I have been discharged and acquitted of all remaining charges by the courts.
“As a mark of honor and respect for the Lord and as an everlasting testimony of my love for and dedication to him, I wish to make it known to the Nigerian public that as from today my name will be changed.
“It will no longer be David Oluwafemi Fani-Kayode but instead, it shall be David Oluwafemi Olukayode. Olukayode means “the Lord has brought me joy” and today he has done precisely that.”
The former aviation minister said that he had sworn not leave the shores of Nigeria until the case was finally brought to an end and that since the courts had pronounced his innocence seven years after it all began “I shall be leaving the shores of my beloved country for the first time in seven years for a short holiday and a long overdue medical examination.” [myad]
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